--- --- # See New, Close-Up Images of Pluto Taken by NASA Probe New Horizons by [Rishi Iyengar](https://time.com/author/rishi-iyengar/) ## Rishi Iyengar Feb 6, 2015 3:44 AM UTC by [Rishi Iyengar](https://time.com/author/rishi-iyengar/) ## Rishi Iyengar Feb 6, 2015 3:44 AM UTC NASA’s space probe New Horizons has sent back its first images of Pluto and its moon Charon during the probe’s final approach towards the dwarf planet, which the agency [released](http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20150204) Wednesday.  NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute The publishing of the images coincides with the birth anniversary of Clyde Tombaugh, Pluto’s discoverer, who died in 1997. “This is our birthday tribute to Professor Tombaugh and the Tombaugh family, in honor of his discovery and life achievements,” said New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern. The spacecraft, which has traveled 3 billion miles across the solar system for over nine years, is currently scheduled to fly past Pluto and its moons on July 14\. (It took the above grainy but exciting images from about 126 million miles away.) “Pluto is finally becoming more than a pinpoint of light,” said the mission’s project scientist Hal Weaver. ### See 25 Incredible Images of Earth From Space  Alberta, Canada, Oct. 10, 2014. DigitalGlobe  Kiev, Ukraine, Feb. 24, 2014. DigitalGlobe  Itaipu Dam, Paraguay, March 12, 2014. DigitalGlobe  San Diego County, Calif., May 15, 2014. DigitalGlobe  Maschen, Germany, Aug. 6, 2014. DigitalGlobe  Spui Locks at IJmuiden, Netherlands, Aug. 27, 2014. DigitalGlobe  Mount Sinabung, Indonesia, Jan. 23, 2014. DigitalGlobe  Everett, Washington, July 26, 2014. DigitalGlobe  Garden City, Georgia, May 16, 2014. DigitalGlobe  Kobani, Syria, Nov. 6, 2014. DigitalGlobe  World’s largest tire graveyard in Sulaibiya, Kuwait, June 4, 2014. DigitalGlobe  Sinjar, Iraq, Sept. 15, 2014. DigitalGlobe  Huayuanli, China, Oct. 18, 2014. DigitalGlobe  Nordenskjold Basin, Antarctica, March 12, 2014. DigitalGlobe  Oktoberfest, Munich, Germany, Sept. 24, 2014. DigitalGlobe  Mexico City, Mexico, Aug. 1, 2014. DigitalGlobe  Glastonbury Festival, Pilton, Somerset, England, June 25, 2014. DigitalGlobe  Bayan Obo Mining District, China, Aug. 23, 2014. DigitalGlobe  The Diavikk Diamond Mine, Canada, Aug. 21, 2014. DigitalGlobe  Cuprite Hill, Nevada, Sept. 19, 2014\. (Spectral-rich imagery, like this, reveals what's below the surface) DigitalGlobe  Rainbow Range, British Columbia, Canada, Sept. 20, 2014. DigitalGlobe  Henan Coal Mine, China, May 29, 2014. DigitalGlobe  Prirazlomnaya Oil Platform, Russia, June 28, 2014. DigitalGlobe  Caspian Sea, Kazakhstan, Sept., 2014. DigitalGlobe  Gunja, Croatia, May 21, 2014. DigitalGlobe See New, Close-Up Images of Pluto Taken By NASA Probe New Horizons ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3698433/new-horizons-nasa-images-pluto-charon-approach/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3698433/new-horizons-nasa-images-pluto-charon-approach/"},"headline":"See New, Close-Up Images of Pluto Taken by NASA Probe New Horizons","datePublished":"2015-02-06T03:44:59.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:05:49.265Z","description":"The probe is scheduled to fly past the dwarf planet on July 14 this year","url":"https://time.com/3698433/new-horizons-nasa-images-pluto-charon-approach/","keywords":["astronomy","NASA","images","Pluto","New Horizons"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Rishi Iyengar","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/rishi-iyengar/"}],"articleSection":"Science","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/science/","name":"Science"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/astronomy/","name":"astronomy"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3698433/new-horizons-nasa-images-pluto-charon-approach/","name":"See New, Close-Up Images of Pluto Taken by NASA Probe New Horizons"}}]}] ```